Serve and Bluebird
Using The Prepaid American Express for Points and Miles The Serve network, and it's similar prepaid products Bluebird at Walmart and "Redbird" at Target, have been powerful tools for manufactured spending in the past but are proving more difficult to use these days. Serve and it's brethren represent products aimed at the "under-banked", a prepaid card where you can load funds and be able to use the credit card like any other American Express card (including potentially lucrative Amex Offers) but have been discovered to be tools used by churners to easily liquidate gift cards at little to no cost. Before you get too excited and jump right in, be aware that the use of Serve has been greatly limited since the middle of 2015 - Serve has had "rolling shutdowns" every 2-3 months where anybody who has any activity that resembles manufactured spending has been shut down and effectively banned from ever re-applying for another Serve card and thus prevented from loading any more funds to the cards. The Basic Steps to Using Serve * Buy Visa gift cards (or MasterCard if you hate yourself) online or locally because you cannot load any of these cards with a Credit card directly at a retail location * Bring them to a location that loads Serve and load the funds from your gift cards into your Serve account * If you have an AMEX Card, on some Serves you can load $200/day up to $1000/month to help meet minimum spends ** You will NOT receive points from these spends if a first-party (AMEX issued) card but will count toward minimum spend requirements ** If the card is a third-party (non-AMEX issued) AMEX, you will receive points as normal * Liquidate your funds from Serve by either: ** Directly transferring your funds from Serve to your bank account via ACH (bad idea, raises suspicion) ** Using Bill Pay to pay the initial credit cards which you used to purchase the gift cards We don't discuss Serve much because most of us are banned, caught up in the initial wave some time in 2015. However if you're new to the game you can use this to your advantage if you use the following strategy: * Sign up for some variety of Serve (OneVIP, BlueBird, Green, but NOT the Target card) * Month #1, ensure you load the full $5000 via retail loads and $1000 via online loads * Month #2, early in the month complete your loads * Cancel your card before the end of Month #2 * Re-apply for a different version of Serve at the end of Month #3 for use in Month #4 * Rinse and repeat, cancelling every 2 months to avoid the rolling bans What do I do if I get banned? Well, there are three possible choices as we see it: * Close your Serve, wait some time, and try to re-open a different flavor some time in the future ** Some reports on Reddit have this working but appears few and far between * Close your Serve, open a Target Redcard, and use it for the in-store 5% bonus ** Probably the most productive use of the card post-shutdown * Sit on your Serve, leave it open, and hope AMEX "forgets" you are banned and re-enables your access ** This is likely a huge waste of time. Don't really do this. Flavors of American Express Serve Available So if you're eligible for Serve, here are your options for which card to get: Serve OneVIP Loading fee: Free Maintenance fee: $1/month, withdrawn from your balance at statement date How to waive fees: Load $500 in any manner (Direct Deposit, In-Store, or Online load) within a calendar month Where to load: Walmart, Family Dollar, Rite Aid, Dollar General Additional Features: Access to concerts? Something vague like that. Opinion: THE Serve to get. Fee-free loads and a monthly fee that is easy to get waived with any qualifying loads. Serve Silver Loading fee: $3.95 Maintenance fee: $5.95/month, withdrawn from your balance at statement date How to waive fees: None. You are stuck paying $5.95 per month. Where to load: Walmart, Family Dollar, Rite Aid, Dollar General Additional Features: 1% cash back on purchases Opinion: Easily the worst of the options for Serve. Too many fees. Serve Blue Loading fee: $3.95 Maintenance fee: $1/month, withdrawn from your balance at statement date How to waive fees: Direct deposit of $500/month, other deposits do not count Where to load: Walmart, Family Dollar, Rite Aid, Dollar General Additional Features: None Opinion: Not our favorite, fees are better than other cards but worse than others. Middle of the line. Serve Green Loading fee: Free Maintenance fee: $4.95/month, withdrawn from your balance at statement date How to waive fees: None. You're stuck paying. Where to load: Walmart, Family Dollar, Rite Aid, Dollar General Additional Features: Earns 1% cashback on all purchases Opinion: The second worst of the bunch. You're not going to legitimately spend on any Serve card other than Amex Offers. Walmart Bluebird Loading fee: Free at Walmart Maintenance fee: Free How to waive fees: No fees Where to load: Walmart Additional Features: Access to concerts? Something vague like that. Opinion: No online credit card loads limit the Bluebird, and only loadable at Walmart. But other than the OneVIP, the only other fee-free option. Target Redcard "Redbird" Loading fee: Free Maintenance fee: Free How to waive fees: No fees Where to load: Target Additional Features: 5% off all spending at Target Opinion: Only accepts cash loads, no debit loads. For that reason we can't recommend getting the Redbird. The only reason to get this card is to get 5% off on Target expenditures. Load $1 at the Service Desk on the card and get 5% off your whole order. Dead for MS. Back to Manufactured Spending Home